Killer fungi: The health threat that’s creeping up on us

They kill more people than malaria, and the death toll is set to rise. But we are only just starting to understand the devious ways fungi can infect us

Ron Kurniawan

By Tim Vernimmen

SOME are tasty, others are a nuisance. That’s probably how most of us think of fungi. Few people would consider them to be killers. But perhaps we should.

Fungi are on the march. New varieties are emerging and infecting everything from crops to amphibians. Some of this is down to the ease of international travel, which is spreading hardy spores to new locations. Then there’s our disruption of natural environments, which creates opportunities for fungi to evolve. Now, some researchers are worried we could be about to reap the spores we’ve sown: might we have unleashed a killer?

Neil Gow, a medical mycologist at the University of Aberdeen, UK, was co-organiser of a conference held at London’s Royal Society earlier this year to assess the growing fungal threat in areas from animal welfare to food security to ecosystem stability. He’s keen not to overstate the threat to human health – but not to downplay it either. “I don’t think a fungal pandemic is imminent: as far as we know, humanity has never been struck by one,” he says. That is not to say fungi don’t kill people. “More people die from invasive fungal infections than from malaria, a disease we hear much more about.”

Even now, about a dozen fungal species kill in total around 1.5 million people every year. Fungal disease is a significant contributor to AIDS deaths, for example – and yet the threat is often overlooked. “Fungal and bacterial infections may give similar symptoms, leading to misdiagnosis,” says Gow. “So in many cases, patients with fungal infections are initially treated for bacterial infections instead.” …

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